Comic-Con event considered for Balboa Park

There may be a new attraction linked to Comic-Con next year for those who can’t score a ticket to the event, but exactly what that will be and what it will look like is still up in the air.

San Diego City Council President Tony Young has been working with the Comic-Con staff to create a marquee event that would bring extra attention to the already world-famous four-day convention.

Comic-Con and Young’s staff are working with the city’s Commission for Arts and Culture to create an event at Balboa Park that would feature the art of comics, graphic novels and anime around the time of the convention, scheduled for July 12-15 next year.

David Glanzer, a spokesman for Comic-Con, said the organization is excited to work with the city on the event.

“We’re still trying to get together to see how it would work, but I can tell you this — we’re interested,” he said.

The plan for the Balboa Park event is in its infant stage, but both sides say they want to move ahead.

The same cannot be said about Young’s original proposal — a nationally-televised parade that would kick off or end Comic-Con.

Young initially pitched the parade in January after he was elected council president, but Comic-Con officials were not informed of his idea until reporters started calling to see if they had heard anything about it.

Young met with Comic-Con organizers once before the July convention, but has had staffers discussing the feasibility of a parade regularly.

Wednesday things came to a head when Young took to the social networking site Twitter to say Comic-Con thought the parade would diminish their event.

“I asked, begged and pleaded,” Young wrote on Twitter. “After numerous meetings Comic-Con says absolutely no to a parade.”

Glanzer said Young’s statements about the discussions were inaccurate and said Comic-Con’s primary reason for not wanting to have the parade downtown was that the logistics, traffic and crowding would be problematic settingup the convention and taking it down.

Not having the full support of Comic-Con does not mean the parade idea is dead. Young said he hopes an entrepreneur or the city’s Tourism Marketing District would put the funding and the time into planning a parade to celebrate Comic-Con.